Hey, Howard…where d’ja eat? I was in town, too, but left early. Ran out of stuff to do, and got bored and fuckin’ cold. Shoulda called you. Maybe we coulda had a few laffs. Can you tell I took a writing course at SLC?
So I saw the NYC Grid exhibit at the Museum of the City of New York; then walked down to the Jewish Museum where I got a third arm inspection before they let me in. I mean their security was thorough, and ticklish. This came after a walk down Fifth Avenue with some guy named Kevin who couldn’t stop talking; you know, it sounded rational but crazy. The thing was, I didn’t figure out he was nuts until at least ten blocks. So, I failed the three-block test: if you can’t figure out that some guy on the street talking to you is out of his mind after three blocks, then you’d better start talking too, and fast.
At the Jewish Museum, I saw a dreary Photo League exhibit from the thirties; it made living in NY then look like the most miserable experience. As I have a stunted social consciousness, I fled…down to the basement cafe where somebody’s bubbe urged me to try the chicken soup with a bagel. Really, I kid you not. So I thanked the Israeli girl behind the counter for warming me up. She said, her husband musn’t know. I said, maybe we could go somewhere without her husband, wishing that she had given me the third arm inspection, instead of the butch uniform upstairs. She broke out in giggly, rapid-fire Hebrew and a heavy-set dude in a pink yarmulke came out of the kitchen, and he hadn’t yet turned his sword into a plowshare. Mercifully, it wasn’t her husband. Once again, I fled. I try to go to the Jewish Museum whenever I’m in town.
But before I left I did a little architectural tour. You know, the usual “jack-booted sentinels of corporate power”: Black Rock, the Seagram Building and Roche’s dynamite Ford Foundation. But there at Tudor City, I saw the neatest little town house, stuck in the middle of the project, at a loose end, like an overlooked left-over from another age. Check it out; it’s all the way east on 41st, north side, the last place on the block.
To answer your question. I took the memoir course (Writing from the Chaos of Our Lives). Not a bad title. It was great, it was all middle-aged women. I was the only guy. I was hoping maybe to score with one of them, but it turned into group psychotherapy. Not a chance. This spring, I will take the playwriting course, where I plan to write a play about my psychotic, narcissistic mother.
Ok, I’ll bite. Your question, “where’s the closet?”, got me thinking about closets. Maybe you and I should come out of the closet together and declare our love for each other, at last. I don ‘t know what our wives will think, but who cares, you only live once. We could buy that cozy, little cottage together on East 41st. And our wives could do their own thing, if you get my drift. Or was it a typo? They could live downstairs.
By the way, thanks for sending me that photograph on the farm where I was talking intimately to a large, black dog. You may NOT have publishing rights. I have been trying to prove my sanity for decades. Publishing the photograph could really set me back a few.
Love to you both, KofJ
